Three incidents occur in the novel The Beneficiaries that Lally attributes to clarify the reasons behind her ‘doubt’ in her society. The three incidents will be described and explained with reference to the novel as a whole. It is striking how Lally responds physically to incidents, more with her body than with her mind, for example when she would drift into a trance-like state when staring at the world map in the dining hall or when she would lock herself in her “ice chamber”. The three incidents which occur during the chapter Doubt result in Lally’s unconventional lifestyle and her attitude towards society as an adult. The incidents uncover a doubt which has been “a long time in building” and inquires all that Lally’s society deem acceptable. …show more content…
The one boy was a matric and the other one of Lally’s classmates, Shuttleworth. During apartheid homosexuality was illegal and at Lally’s schools an expellable offence. The older boy took the blame and was sent to the sanatorium to await the train back to his home town. Shuttleworth is mocked and ridiculed with “limp-wristed and ostentatious gestures” and Lally explains that she “...would not have placed him for a poofter...”. By examining this it is not hard to understand why Lally would experience confusion after the three incidents based on what her apartheid society deemed ‘natural’. After all, homosexuality is one of the many things she has been indoctrinated to believe is unacceptable in the